Okay, I found the map of the farm I drew on my first trip to Michigan. When I mentioned it in Gentleman Farmer, part 2, I said “It also showed where my cousins and I were surprised by a blue racer snake.” That’s not actually on the map, but it happened in the area labeled “garden”. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a picture of a blue racer directly above. Harmless, but scarier looking than I remembered.
A couple of things are hard to make out. The square in the corner of the chicken yard says “coop”; the line under “pump” says “51 ft. well”, which I guess was deep enough for someone to brag about. Where it says “garage”, think “barn”. Not shown is the chicken-execution stump, which apparently I was repressing at the time. Not to scale.
I also found a letter I sent home the same year. I think the typing is pretty good for a 10-year-old, but it probably wasn’t the first draft. Some typewriters didn’t have a number ‘1’ key then, you were supposed to use a lowercase ‘L’ instead, but nobody told me that and I improvised. The “Peggy” it mentions is a cat, not a person.
